Alfred Neville was born a t Great Chatwell o n 21 April 1889 and that he was the eig hth o f nine children born t o Edward and Sarah. I n 1907 h e married Fanny Bickley o f Penkridge and they had three daughters Sarah Ellen( 1908), Francis Margaret (1 910 ) an d Violet Mabel (19 1 1 ). According to the 191 1 census he was a waggoner working on a farm. Sadly , Fanny died in 1913 aged just 32. With the comi ng o f war i n 1914 Alfre d was one who answered the call t o ar ms enlisting int o the North Staffordshire Regiment in November o f that year . It is surprising that h e enlisted so early i n the war bearing in mind that h e was a widower with three yo ung children the oldest being 6 years old. It seems that the children went t o live with family members. Having c ompleted his military training, h e was posted to the 8 th Battalion North Staffordshir e Regiment with whom he serv ed in France an d Flanders. The 1 st July 1916 saw th e beg inning o f the Battle o f the Somme, that da y saw the British army suffer 6 0,000 casualties including 2 0,000 dead. Despite the horrific losses the battle continued, in fact the fighting did not stop until November and the onset o f wint er . The 8 th North Staffs went into action on the Somme o n the 3 rd July, their objective the totally demolished villag e o f La Boiselle. According to the of ficial history th ere was a lot o f confusion within the village when the Staffords reached it and a c oun ter -attack b y the Germans succeeded i n pushing them back. The line was stiffened b y the arrival o f two companies from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment which drove th e Germans back. The position was then held until they were reliev ed the following morning. His service records confirm that following this battle amongst the missing was Alfred Neville an d that in the c hao s o f war it was no t confirmed until 10 th February 191 7 that h e ha d died o f his wo und s and had been buried. Sad ly however , his grave was lost, most likely destroyed b y artillery fire and h e now i s recorded a s having n o known grave but is one o f the 72 , 00 0 rem embered o n the Thiepval Mem orial. His name is also on the Roll of Honour in St Mary’s Church, Moreton .

Alfred Neville

Private 15226 – 8 th Battalion North Staf fordshi re Re giment Ki lled in Ac tion 9 th J ul y 1916 – aged 32 Remem ber ed on the Thi epv al Me mori al

Thiep val Mem orial

Historical Informatio n On 1 July 1916, supported by a Frenc h attack to the sout h, t hirteen divisions of Commonwealth forces launched an offensive on a line from north of Gommec ourt to Maricourt. Despite a preliminary bombardment lasting seven days, the Ger man defences were barely touched and the attack met unex pectedly fierce resistance. Losses were catastrophic and with only mini mal advances on the southern fl ank, the initial attack was a failure. In the following weeks, huge resources of manpower and equipment w ere deployed in an attempt to exploit the modest successes of the first day . However , the German Army resisted tenaciously and repeated attacks and counter attacks meant a major battle for every village, copse and farmhouse gained. At the end of September , Thiepval was finally captured. The village had been an original objective of 1 July . Attacks north and eas t continued throughout October and into November in increasingly difficult weather conditions. The Bat tle of the Somme finally ended on 18 November with the onset of win te r . In the spring of 1917, the German forces fell back to their newly pre pared defenc es, the Hindenburg Line, and there were no furth er significant engagements in the Somme s ector until the Germans mounted their major of fensive in March 1918. The Thiepval Memorial , the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme s ec tor bef ore 20 March 1918 and have no know n grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. The memorial als o serves as an Anglo-French Battle Memorial in recognition of the joint nature of the 1916 offensive and a small cemetery contai ning equal numbers of Commonw ealth and Fre nch graves lies at the foot of the me morial.